Influence of Mental Model-derived Themes on the Quality of Radiological Emergency Response by HAZMAT Technicians: Insights from a Case Study.

This paper investigates the link between gaps in emergency responders' notions of mental model regarding radiation and risk and their effectiveness in responding to radiological incidents. Particularly, this work focused on exploring themes that emerged in prior work related to improper understanding and application of knowledge concepts related to radiation risks and Radiological Dispersal Device (RDD) scenarios (Leek et al., 2024b).

Risk assessment of aflatoxin in Iowa corn post-harvest using an event tree analysis: A case study.

Mycotoxins are secondary metabolites produced by fungi found in corn and are anticipated to increase globally due to enhanced weather extremes and climate change. Aflatoxin (AFL) is of concern due to its harmful effects on human and animal health. AFL can move through complex grain supply chains in the United States, including multiple stakeholders from farms, grain elevators, grain and ethanol processors, and feed mills, before reaching end users, putting numerous entities at risk.

Prevalence and Risk Assessment of Aflatoxin in Iowa Corn during a Drought Year.

Warm temperatures and drought conditions in the United States (US) Corn Belt in 2012 raised concern for widespread aflatoxin (AFL) contamination in Iowa corn. To identify the prevalence of AFL in the 2012 corn crop, the Iowa Department of Agriculture and Land Stewardship (IDALS) conducted a sample of Iowa corn to assess the incidence and severity of AFL contamination. Samples were obtained from grain elevators in all of Iowa's 99 counties, representing nine crop reporting districts (CRD), and 396 samples were analyzed by IDALS using rapid test methods.

Gradient boosting machine learning model to predict aflatoxins in Iowa corn.

Introduction: Aflatoxin (AFL), a secondary metabolite produced from filamentous fungi, contaminates corn, posing significant health and safety hazards for humans and livestock through toxigenic and carcinogenic effects. Corn is widely used as an essential commodity for food, feed, fuel, and export markets; therefore, AFL mitigation is necessary to ensure food and feed safety within the United States (US) and elsewhere in the world. In this case study, an Iowa-centric model was developed to predict AFL contamination using historical corn contamination, meteorological, satellite, and soil property data in the largest corn-producing state in the US.

Factors that Influence Farm Safety Decisions of Young Adults when Entering Agricultural Grain Bins.

HIGHLIGHTS A grain handling scenario-based survey was administered to college students studying agriculture. Participants chose an action after reading each scenario and ranked factors affecting their decision-making. Most participants chose a "safe" option and claimed to value their personal safety when making decisions.

A Qualitative Approach to Understanding Grain Bin Entry Decisions by Youth.

Youths - defined as children under the age of 18 - are frequently involved in agricultural work. Parental assignment, briefing, and supervision of hazardous farm tasks have an influence on youth safety, yet many youths are injured or killed performing these tasks. This research utilized a qualitative approach to analyze why youths choose to make hazardous decisions regarding grain bin entry and factors that played a role in youths' decisions.

OPENMENDEL: a cooperative programming project for statistical genetics.

Statistical methods for genome-wide association studies (GWAS) continue to improve. However, the increasing volume and variety of genetic and genomic data make computational speed and ease of data manipulation mandatory in future software. In our view, a collaborative effort of statistical geneticists is required to develop open source software targeted to genetic epidemiology.

Agricultural Worker Injury Comparative Risk Assessment Methodology: Assessing Corn and Biofuel Switchgrass Production Systems.

Keeping workers safe is a continuing challenge in agricultural production. Risk assessment methodologies have been used widely in other industries to better understand systems and enhance decision making, yet their use in production agriculture has been limited. This article describes the considerations and the approach taken to measure the difference in worker injury risks between two agricultural production systems.

Using Workers' Compensation Claims Data to Characterize Occupational Injuries in the Commercial Grain Elevator Industry.

Workplace injuries in the grain handling industry are common, yet little research has characterized worker injuries in grain elevators across all hazard types. Learning from past injuries is essential for preventing future occurrences, but the lack of injury information for the grain handling industry hinders this effort. The present study addresses this knowledge gap by using data from over 7000 workers' compensation claims reported from 2008 to 2016 by commercial grain handling facilities in the U.

Approaching Safety through Quality: Factors Influencing College Student Perceptions.

Quality management practices have been identified by previous literature as a factor that could potentially reduce the level of safety incidents and hazards in agricultural work environments. The present study used multivariate analysis to examine the effect of independent variables such as quality and safety awareness, work experience, safety and quality management experience, and the perceived importance of safety and quality on the role of quality management practices as a mitigating factor for safety hazards and incidents in agriculture. Variables were measured on a five-point scale using a survey questionnaire.

Preclinical Studies of a Kidney Safe Iodinated Contrast Agent.

Background And Purpose: Contrast-induced acute kidney injury (CI-AKI) is a serious complication of the use of iodinated contrast agents. This problem is particularly acute in interventional neurology and interventional cardiology, probably due to the intra-arterial route of injection, high contrast volumes, and preexisting risk factors of these patients. In an attempt to develop a contrast agent that is less damaging to the kidneys, we have studied the effects of adding a small amount of the substituted cyclodextrin, sulfobutyl-ether-β-cyclodextrin (SBECD), to iohexol in rodent models of renal toxicity.

Perceptions of Agricultural College Students on the Relationship between Quality and Safety in Agricultural Work Environments.

Agriculture is a high-hazard industry that employs a large number of young workers below the age of 25. Recent studies have documented a strong positive correlation between quality management in agriculture and occupational safety as perceived by agricultural workers. Younger workers have been found to be at higher risk for occupational injuries and fatalities in agriculture.

Development of a safety decision-making scenario to measure worker safety in agriculture.

Human factors play an important role in the management of occupational safety, especially in high-hazard workplaces such as commercial grain-handling facilities. Employee decision-making patterns represent an essential component of the safety system within a work environment. This research describes the process used to create a safety decision-making scenario to measure the process that grain-handling employees used to make choices in a safety-related work task.

Measurement of worker perceptions of trust and safety climate in managers and supervisors at commercial grain elevators.

The safety climate of an agricultural workplace may be affected by several things, including the level of trust that workers have in their work group supervisor and organizational management. Safety climate has been used by previous safety researchers as a measure of worker perceptions of the relative importance of safety as compared with other operational goals. Trust has been linked to several positive safety outcomes, particularly in hazardous work environments, but has not been examined relative to safety climate in the perennially hazardous work environment of a commercial grain elevator.

Management of safety and quality and the relationship with employee decisions in country grain elevators.

Human factors play an important role in the management of safety and quality in an agricultural work environment. Although employee actions and decisions have been identified as a key component of successful occupational safety programs and quality management programs, little attention has been given to the employees' role in these types of programs. This research explored two safety relationships that have theoretical connections but little previous research: the relationship between safety climate and quality climate, and the relationship of the safety and quality climates between the organizational level and the group level within a workplace.

Pharmacokinetics and platelet aggregation inhibitory effects of a novel intravenous formulation of clopidogrel in humans.

1. PM103 is an intravenous formulation of clopidogrel being developed as an alternative to oral clopidogrel to provide for dosing flexibility in the emergent clinical setting. The present first-in-human study assessed the pharmacokinetic and pharmacodynamic effects of PM103 and its safety in 144 healthy human subjects.

Improved aqueous solubility of crystalline astaxanthin (3,3'-dihydroxy-beta, beta-carotene-4,4'-dione) by Captisol (sulfobutyl ether beta-cyclodextrin).

Carotenoids are the most widely distributed natural pigments, with over 600 individual compounds identified and characterized from natural sources. A few are commercially important molecules, having found utility as additions to animal feed in the aquaculture, poultry, and swine feed industries. The majority are lipophilic molecules with near zero inherent aqueous solubility.

The determination of interfacial transfer constants using side-by-side diffusion cells.

A side-by-side diffusion cell setup has been used to determine the pH 7.4 buffer-octanol interfacial transfer constants for twelve compounds. The compounds are a diverse selection of pharmaceuticals, amino acids, and small organics which covers a log distribution coefficient (K) range of -3 to 2.

Photoreactivity of LY277359 maleate, a 5-hydroxytryptamine3 (5-HT3) receptor antagonist, in solution.

Compound LY277359 maleate undergoes a photoinduced solvolysis reaction in water to generate the corresponding hydroxylated product and release chloride. Attempts to stabilize a parenteral formulation of the compound led to an investigation of possible reaction mechanisms. The data are consistent with a mechanism involving homolytic cleavage of the aryl-chloride bond followed by electron transfer to give an aryl cation intermediate.

Urinary calcium excretion in healthy adolescents.

To establish normative data for urinary calcium excretion in healthy adolescents, we measured calcium-creatinine ratios (UCa/Cr) in urine samples collected from 222 middle school teenagers of diverse racial and socioeconomic backgrounds. Median UCa/Cr were: white girls, 0.23 mmol/L per mmol/L (0.

Pilocarpine prodrugs. II. Synthesis, stability, bioconversion, and physicochemical properties of sequentially labile pilocarpine acid diesters.

Various novel diesters of pilocarpic acid were synthesized and evaluated as prodrug forms for pilocarpine with the aim of improving the ocular delivery characteristics of the drug. The pilocarpic acid monoesters previously studied cyclized spontaneously to pilocarpine in aqueous solution and although they showed enhanced corneal permeability when compared with pilocarpine these monoesters suffered from poor solution stability. The present study shows that this problem can be totally overcome by blocking the free hydroxyl group in the monoesters.